Abstract

Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) is not a distinct school of therapy, but more a framework for focusing interventions that span across (and have emerged from) multiple different therapy traditions and approaches. In this respect CFT is a process-driven, rather than technique-driven, approach. The process unfolds to create certain contexts and conditions for an individual that will facilitate their mind’s natural adaptive, healing and problem-solving processes. So, essentially, CFT aims to create the conditions within a person’s environment, body and mind that will give them the best chance of working with, and integrating, distressing emotions and experiences. The CFT claim is that whatever threat-related intervention is required in therapy (e.g., addressing a fear, trauma, avoided emotion, behaviour), this will be more successful having first created these ‘optimum’ physiological and motivational conditions.